Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising
War is reborn...

The last war on Earth was fought in an island somewhere in the Pacific ocean. That island was where the Old God was brought down. 20 years were spent on building a world of peace. However, the Old God never went away. The 20th century remains of death lovers and power brokers, those who lived of theft and hate, have formed a cabal with the intention of bringing the world apart. The society of 2032 is now up with the hard task of re-learning war to face this threat.

New technology and bringing the old cruisers back from it's underwater graves, the ability of bonding the systems of the vehicles with chips containing the minds of dead soldiers (giving the vehicles autonomous control), nano-technology which can, in seconds rebuilt a wrecked vehicle and assimilate it's tech... War is alive once more. These are Hostile Waters...

This is, in short, what Hostile Waters is about. The good guys defeated the bad guys and built a world of peace. However, the bad guys weren't really gone, so they gathered in a conspiracy to break the world apart. The good guys now have to re-learn war to kick the bad guys' but. And guess what... we're the good guys :p

The Interface

Before entering any mission we are taken to the War-room. Here is where we can build a strategy plan. The map table gives a global view of the scenery and is possible to look around using the directional keys, zoom using the + and - keys and rotate using the right-mouse button. The level objectives are given through a briefing when entering the War-room.

At the top-left corner of the screen there's a useful mini-map for monitoring everything that's going on, on the mission. At the top-right corner it's the Command Interface which should get particular attention. This tool will allow to give orders to our vehicles from the War-room or while in direct control of them. Defining the movement path and giving tasks from this room is very useful.

Between these two panels are our vehicles, located on the top-center of the screen. In other words, buttons representing each one of our vehicles. We can switch to any, just by pressing the correspondent number. Useful, easy and quick.

In-game interface is pretty much similar. The mini-map, vehicle shortcuts, Command Interface (by pressing Space) and... a circular non-rendered map situated on the bottom-left corner of the screen. This allows to monitor the landscape design as well as resources, buildings, hostile items. Also, on the bottom-right corner there's some useful information on the current selected vehicle or target.

Controlling our war vehicles is also easy and quick to learn. They are all controlled the same way. W, A, S, D as directional keys; moving the mouse back and forth is used to look up and down; moving the mouse side to side results in looking left or right. Pretty easy, huh? Naturally some vehicles have exclusive controls (like E and Q for increasing and decreasing altitude in choppers), however the above described ones are similar to all.

The Game Engine

Hostile Waters has a pretty good game engine. Attractive is the correct word, i I believe. Good (enough) detailed graphics cover the scenery and the vehicles. The weather effect is good and I love looking at the sky and see the stars behind some moving clouds. And because islands are the backgrounds of all the action in the game we should say a word about water. Water effects were well achieved, but if we take a ride by the shore it's unavoidable to realize it's artificiality. Ok, but this isn't about taking a swim so...

So, let's turn to another curious thing. The day-night cycles. My personal opinion is that the day-night transitions are great, but (there's always a but)... but it has a flaw (a major one). If you take the time to watch a new day born you'll see something peculiar. You'll see the moon coming down towards the horizon and disappear before it gets to it. There's more. Wait some more and you'll see the sun come up (not in the horizon, but above it), and exactly in the same place where the moon disappeared... This brings to my mind a thought: "I didn't learn physics like this in school".

And... ACTION!

Hostile Waters combines the emotion of shooting action with a reinforced strategic side. It's thrilling to control a chopper, trying to take down the enemy's defense systems, while doing a crazy fly by on the buildings and people on ground level. Emotion, is the right word to describe Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising game experience. Great graphics, astonishing action makes this game by Rage a very good title to be on everyone's collection.

Thundra
thundra@gamesurge.com